We shall be able to sow our second crop, by God's blessing, a week earlier than we did last year.' The person addressed returned no answer; and his companion, after watching him for some time in silence, recommenced-- 'What is it, my brother?
I have remarked lately a melancholy about you, which is hardly fitting for a man of God.' A deep sigh was the only answer.

The speaker laid down his hoe, and placing his hand affectionately on the shoulder of Aufugus, asked again-- 'What is it, my friend?
I will not claim with you my abbot's right to know the secrets of your heart: but surely that breast hides nothing which is unworthy to be spoken to me, however unworthy I may be to hear it!' 'Why should I not be sad, Pambo, my friend?
Does not Solomon say that there is a time for mourning ?' 'True: but a time for mirth also.' 'None to the penitent, burdened with the guilt of many sins.' 'Recollect what the blessed Anthony used to say--"Trust not in thine own righteousness, and regret not that which is past."' 'I do neither, Pambo.' 'Do not be too sure of that.

Is it not because thou art still trusting in thyself, that thou dost regret the past, which shows thee that thou art not that which thou wouldst gladly pride thyself on being ?' 'Pambo, my friend,' said Arsenius solemnly, 'I will tell thee all.

My sins are not yet past; for Honorius, my pupil, still lives, and in him lives the weakness and the misery of Rome.

My sins past?
If they are, why do I see rising before me, night after night, that train of accusing spectres, ghosts of men slain in battle, widows and orphans, virgins of the Lord shrieking in the grasp of barbarians, who stand by my bedside and cry, "Hadst thou done thy duty, we had not been thus! Where is that imperial charge which God committed to thee ?"'....